While I have been more critical of Sarah Palin in recent days than I was during the 2008 presidential campaign, I still admire the accomplished reformer for her ability to drive liberals crazy without insulting them and to keep her name in the media. Yesterday, Glenn linked this from Hot Air:

Once again, the former vice presidential nominee has proven she can tilt the political world on its axis in an instant. Last week, Tim Pawlenty, Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann took their campaigns to Iowa, but it was the news of Palin’s bus tour that really had people talking. She made a simple announcement on her website, and she got all the attention, all the interest.

Since Palin and her team won’t share where the potential candidate is headed, reporters and producers have little choice but to simply stay close to Palin’s bus. This has resulted in scenes of the Palin bus tooling down the highway followed by a caravan of 10 or 15 vehicles – including a massive CNN bus – all trying to make sure they don’t lose sight of the Palin bus.

It adds up to a dangerous situation, says CBS News Producer Ryan Corsaro.

I can just see the former Alaska governor looking back through tinted glass windows at the caravan of media struggling to keep up with her bus and laughing (a rich, deep, full laugh) at their obsession. Morrissey offers them a means to spare themselves this dangerous pursuit: “Here’s your first option: stop chasing her. If it truly presents a danger to journalists to drive behind the bus and attempt to keep up, then don’t bother doing it.” Yeah, but, Ed, as Glenn put it, “She’s living in their heads, rent-free, 24-7.” Like a jilted boyfriend, they can’t let her go.

. . . driving the mainstream press to distraction — giving her the media coverage she needs, on her terms, because they just can’t quit her, and because they can’t help but take offense at her audacity in ignoring them, which serves to remind them, uncomfortably, that their cultural significance is based solely on people’s willingness to believe in their power.

If Congressman Anthony Weiner weren’t married, the latest story about the recent tweet from his account should be the biggest non-scandal since a federal judge allegedly found pubic hairs on a can of Coke.

First, if he lied he’s toast. As embarrassing as a raunchy tweet might have been, the recipient isn’t a minor, and the requisite “allow my wife and I privacy” would probably have been sufficient to quell the storm for a liberal Democrat in a safe seat. It’s a truism that voters will put up with a lot, unless you lie to them.

Look, Congressmen are human. They have the same weaknesses, the same strengths, as the rest of us. If Weiner’s twitter wasn’t hacked, Mr Weiner did something a lot of (single) men do when they’re lonely and longing for human connection. Not just that, he pulled the tweet within five minutes of releasing it.

That the Democrat is married does, to be sure, add another wrinkle to the story. But, beyond that, the real issue, if indeed he tweeted the picture in question, is that he lied about it.

Well, there’s a more important story in the nets this weekend that’s not getting nearly as much attention as a tweet from Anthony Weiner and that’s a comment by his colleague from the Sunshine State, Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the woman Obama tapped to head the Democratic National Committee. I mentioned this yesterday, but today, let me give you the actual clip:

In response to Harry Smith’s query, where he points out that Medicare could be “could be insolvent in the next decade” and asks if the Democrats had a plan to fix Medicare in light of its looming insolvency, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee responds by attacking Republicans. She doesn’t tell us what her party would do, but instead tells misrepresents the Republican plan.

If Moderator Harry Smith were like his former CBS colleague Katie Couric and he were dealing with a Republican woman rather than a Democratic one, he would have followed up and pressed her to answer the question. But that’s not all, no, that’s not all. After failing to answer whether or not her party had a plan, the DNC chair then had the gall to offer this:

I think Tea Party activists and Republican candidates elected to Congress by the Tea Party are finding that governing is hard. And that, you know, it’s easy to, you know, to– to throw bombs and– and to be incendiary. Not so easy to sit down and actually govern.

Um, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, you’re so committed to repeating your party’s talking points, then you fail to realize you just described your own rhetoric in that very interview. (more…)

Americans are losing faith that the economy will keep improving, according to a monthly survey.

The Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index fell to 60.8 from a revised 66 in April, a sign of the toll that high gas prices, a choppy job outlook and a moribund housing market are taking on people’s psyches. Economists had expected an increase to 67. It was the lowest reading since November.

. . . are the “economists” who had expected consumer confidence to rise? Perhaps the Associated Press writers could do a little investigation here and tell us who the economists are who keep getting things wrong. Or will they be content to keep characterizing negative economic trends as “unexpected”?

Every Memorial Day as I try to craft a post to remember those who gave their lives so that we might be free, I find myself struggling for words. How can one man use language to convey the power of other men’s deeds, those who made the greatest sacrifice, not just for their own families, but for their country. Particularly in this day of an all-volunteer military, we are all humbled by their sacrifice as we’re grateful for what they accomplished through that sacrifice.

Today I recall the youthful braggadocio of one of the first patriots to give his life for our freedom, Nathan Hale who regretted that he had but “one life to lose for my country” at a time when his country wasn’t even five months old. How many men (and women) in the ensuing 235 years have recalled Hale’s bold statement as they set out to fight for his, for their, for our country, knowing that they too may have to lose their life for its cause to triumph.

And that is true courage, knowing that they might have to make the ultimate sacrifice.

Those who opposed the war and those who supported it can unite in tribute to the loyalty, the courage and the sacrifice of those who served there.

That is something, but it is not enough. The Americans who served, suffered and died in Iraq — and who still serve there today — changed the world and won a great and a difficult victory. No account of their service, no commemoration of the dead that ignores or conceals this vital truth is enough.

Read the whole thing. (H/t: Instapundit). It wasn’t just on battlefields in Iraq where American soldiers changed the world by winning a great and difficult victory. (more…)

When hearing a number of liberal friends this week talking about “social justice,” it seemed they were trying to dress up their liberal political agenda in religious terms. They talked about the need to help the less fortunate, but seem convinced that only state programs could provide the necessary assistance.

. . . never felt comfortable around academics who throw out the word “social justice” because it always seems restrictive and self-serving. Once I hear a group of social “scientists” employing the term, it generally means that are looking for reasons to favor some groups (almost always Democratic constituents), while excluding others.

So, she sees the left-wing ideal of social justice as a particular form of statism, asking whether “the current form of ‘social justice’ with its emphasis on government force for some special interest groups but not for others really justice?” She has a different notion of social justice. Just read the whole thing to find out what it is.

For the moment in 1995 when I had my first leading role in Log Cabin, then in the Capital Area Club, my fellow gay Republicans approached me wondering why the organization didn’t take on the Human Rights Campaign (HRC). They all wanted to see an alternative to that left-leaning organization. And even as HRC became increasingly partisan in the George W. Bush era with its then-President Cheryl Jacques producing billboards and stickers with the slogan “George W. Bush, You’re Fired”, the then-Executive Director of Log Cabin refused to criticize her, having “instituted a new policy inside Log Cabin: If you speak ill of another LGBT group, that is grounds for dismissal.’”

In order to curry favor with the gay groups, Patrick Guerriero was ignoring his own base — or potential base. He could have grown Log Cabin if he showed that his organization was the HRC alternative for which many gay Republicans (and a good number of gay independents) were clamoring.

And because R. Clarke Cooper, the Executive Director of Log Cabin, has been so quick to criticize HRC for prostrating itself before the president, I have decided that come next Tuesday at a Log Cabin/LA event, I will renew my membership — which had lapsed. I encourage you all to join Log Cabin even if you, as I, disagree with them on a few issues. We need to show that they benefit by criticizing HRC’s partisan pandering.

Now, if we could only get them to call out GLAAD for countenancing hate speech against gay conservatives.

Puttering around the apartment this morning beginning my day, I wondered how, without Lexis/Nexis I could test a particular theory of mine, that many economic reporters always seem to find a silver lining in the somewhat dark clouds hovering over our economy in this brave new Obama era while in the previous administration, they always found a dark lining in those silver economic clouds.

Then, just moments later, while munching on my cereal and reading Instapundit (often the first blog over than this one I check every morning), I find this link to one of my favorite pundits exploring another aspect of media bias on the economy;

MICHAEL BARONE: Pro-Obama media always shocked by bad economic news. “I’m confident that any comparison of economic coverage in the Bush years and the coverage now would show far fewer variants of the word ‘unexpectedly’ in stories suggesting economic doldrums. It’s obviously going to be hard to achieve the unacknowledged goal of many mainstream journalists — the president’s re-election — if the economic slump continues. So they characterize economic setbacks as unexpected, with the implication that there’s still every reason to believe that, in Herbert Hoover’s phrase, prosperity is just around the corner. . . . We tend to hire presidents who we think can foresee the future effect of their policies. No one does so perfectly. But if the best sympathetic observers can say about the results is that they are ‘unexpected,’ voters may decide someone else can do better.”

Read the whole thing. It’s not exactly the post I had in mind, but does address the biased coverage of the economy. Maybe with a little legwork, I’ll be able to track down economic reporting which puts a positive gloss on negative economic numbers. (more…)

Learned recently from a reader about a young gay acquaintance of his who, upon coming out has veered far to the left. From the reader’s recounting of the story, it seems the young man became antagonistic toward the right, not based on upon a sober consideration of conservative ideas, but as part of the acculturation process into his new gay identity. We’ve all seen this before as people come out, they suddenly realize how much they hate Republicans.

It seems more a reaction to what they’re taught about conservatives than a rejection of conservative ideas. Indeed, in talking about their new-found animus against the GOP, they repeatedly misrepresent its policies and act as if the party’s sole purpose for existence were to prevent gay people from living our lives openly. It seems they’re taught to project those anxieties natural to anyone first confronting the challenges of facing his difference onto some Other, be it conservative, Republican, Christian or some other adherent of a Western faith.

“Some gay ‘leaders,’” I responded to our reader, “particularly those heading gay student groups on university campi or otherwise working with young people just coming out seem to believe that one can only integrate one’s sexuality into his (or her) life by becoming an left-wing activist for gay rights and an ardent opponent of all things conservatives and anything Republican.” It does seem that many in our community believe that only when by becoming a doctrinaire liberal can you become a well-adjusted homosexual.

Yet, oftentimes, it seems that the most doctrinaire of liberal gays are the most antagonistic toward conservatives and among the least well-adjusted individuals in our society.

It’s not just GOProud and Log Cabin, right-of-center gay groups, which are criticizing HRC for endorsing President Obama’s reelection more than 17 months before Election Day. Left-of-center blogress Pam Spaulding, who has long found Joe Solmonese to be little more than a cheerleader for the administration, calls the endorsement “odd for an allegedly non partisan org.”

HRC clearly hasn’t learned the lessons of the first two years of the Obama presidency. You don’t get anything for being nice to the man (well, anything of substance – I’m sure that HRC dinner invite is now locked in). If anything, he looks down on people who are nice to him. The only thing this President respects are people who stand up to him. The President didn’t finally start moving on DADT, and finally stop defending DOMA, because HRC was nice to him. He did it because this blog, GetEqual, Dan Choi, the larger Gay Netroots, and a very few organizations like Servicemembers United and SLDN stood up to the man. (Had HRC had its way, we’d still be debating the DADT repeal legislation in the Congress today.)

He got that right. And John’s aggressive stance on his blog (as well as Pam’s on hers), threatening a boycott of the DNC, also forced the president’s hand. John acknowledges that, in the long run, HRC may well have to endorse the Democrat, but he first wants Obama to work for the endorsement. It’s not that they’re opposed to Obama, it’s that they’re appalled at HRC’s eagerness to give the goods away.

At least some gay lefty bloggers do get it, understanding that just wanting to be liked by the Democrats is not enough. They know that sometimes to get what you want you have to play hard to get.

HRC is not the only gay organization to beclown itself this week. GLAAD (Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation) which bills itself as an organization that holds “the media accountable for the words and images they present,” has just honored someone who uses the harshest of words to defame a group of his fellow gays, those who do not share his left-of-center worldview.

It awarded, Caroline May reports in the Daily Caller, the best blog distinction to a website run by Joe Jarvis, a blogger who . . .

“One thing about the kapo bootlickers at GOProud, we alway$ know where their prioritie$ lie,” Jarvis wrote in December about the conservative gay group GOProud’s support of tax cuts.

He has also used scatological term to attack conservative bloggers personally. By designating him as the best blogger, GLAAD has honored an individual who regularly defames approximately one-third of all gay people. Please join me in contacting GLAAD and asking them why they choose to single out someone who regularly demeans gay conservatives.

Gay conservatives who support GLAAD would be wise to ask for their money back and direct it to more responsibleorganizations.

Log Cabin is not letting up in its attack on HRC, the Democratic front group the gay and lesbian advocacy organization, that recently endorsed President Obama’s reelection roughly nine months ahead of the first primaries. In an e-mail to the group’s mailing list, Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper speculates as to what kind of “message” this endorsement “sends to Barack Obama”:

Endorsements, especially from our community’s (nominally) nonpartisan advocates, should be made on the merits of the candidates. Unfortunately, HRC has a history of endorsing Democrats too soon out of blind faith. They endorsed Bill Clinton, only to have him then sign the Defense of Marriage Act. Shamefully, the endorsement remained.

Log Cabin Republicans are proud of our record of standing up for our friends and standing up to Republicans who cross the line. Can HRC say the same about Barack Obama? After this, can HRC truly represent the interests of LGBT Americans?

(Emphasis in original.) No, it doesn’t, but the president certainly thinks HRC represents gay Americans. And now that he has HRC’s endorsement, Obama will assume he’s taken care of those pesky homosexuals and can start vacuuming up their cash, with the reassurance that he doesn’t need do anything else to placate gay Democrats. No worries any more about running afoul of some of his religious supporters averse not just to state recognition of gay marriage, but to civil unions as well. (more…)

Except for its leadership’s insistence in aping the “equality” rhetoric of the gay organizations, under the helm of Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin is sounding more and more like a Republican organization. Like us, he took the Courage (sic) Campaign to task for demanding that Orbitz pull its ads on FoxNews and defended that “most trusted news source” in his statement:

If these armchair activists ever actually watched FOX News, they would know that there is a vibrant debate on the issue of LGBT equality occurring, with conservative champions like regular commentator Margaret Hoover speaking out in favor of freedom for all. FOX News’s legal analyst, Judge Andrew Napolitano, has argued against DOMA and ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.’ Even Glenn Beck, speaking on The O’Reilly Factor, expressed his opinion that gay marriage was not any sort of threat to American values. These tactics are short-sighted, uninformed, and unfair to corporations who have stood by our community through thick and thin. Our friends deserve better than to be condemned for simply doing what is best for their businesses by advertising on some of the most watched media available.

Republicans have put forward a plan to kick-start the private sector engines of our economy by fostering innovation and investment. By contrast, Senate Democrats remain A.W.O.L. on the economy, having failed to pass a budget for a mind-boggling 757 days.

Nice to see a Log Cabin executive director actually taking on another gay organization and standing up for conservative ideas. It helps that Log Cabin tapped a guy with an actual background in Republican politics — in a state where the GOP is right of center. Cooper worked with such Republican stars as Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ambassador John Bolton and my guy for 2012, Governor Jeb Bush.

And it also helps to have another right-of-center gay group around. GOProud has shown that gay conservatives can get mileage in criticizing the gay left — and standing up for unifying conservative principles.

Well, Joe took a step yesterday showing that he is still eager to win the White House’s affection, endorsing Barack Obama for re-election before the Republican field has even been set (and more than seventeen months before the actual election). Let’s hope he has better luck with his endorsement than did Elizabeth Birch, one of his predecessors who, in 1996, endorsed an incumbent Democratic president for reelection only to have their endorsee sign the Defense of Marriage Act not long thereafter. Lot of good that endorsement did. Despite Clinton’s taking gay voters from granted, HRC did not rescind the endorsement.

And while this endorsement (just like that one) comes as no surprise — Joe’s blind devotion to the Democratic party has long been clear — something happened yesterday that comes as an incredible surprise, shattering the firmament of the gay political establishment. No, it wasn’t the swift response from our friends at GOProud whose executive director Jimmy LaSalvia, within an hour of HRC’s announcement, said the “pre-emptive endorsement” shows HRC to be “little more than a puppet of the Democratic National Committee“. Since their founding, our friends at GOProud have not hesitated to criticize HRC’s blind allegiance to the Democratic Party.

By prostrating themselves before Barack Obama eighteen months before the 2012 election, the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) has effectively told the president that he doesn’t have to do anything more to earn gay and lesbian votes. (more…)

40 senators stood their ground yesterday in voting for the Ryan budget. Now they (and every member of the House who has voted for Ryan’s Medicare plan) need to explain why.

One Republican Senator, she reports, “shows how to do it”:

Simply put, the Ryan reforms are not about ending Medicare, but about saving it. With increasing evidence, as Senator Rubio reminds us, of the government program’s looming bankruptcy, Republicans need to respond aggressively to Democratic attacks, instead of ducking for cover as some have done. They need to ask Democrats who have criticized the Ryan plan, to put their own plan to reform the popular program on the table.

“Either show us,” the Florida Republican said at 2:20 above,

how Medicare survives without any changes. Or show us what changes you propose we make because anyone who supports doing nothing on Medicare is a supporter of bankrupting Medicare. Where is the House Democrat plan to save Medicare? Where is the Senate Democrat plan to save Medicare. Where is President Obama’s plan to save Medicare?

If Democrats fail to do so, Republicans need to call them out on it. Nice to see some Republicans going on the offensive so soon after the loss in NY-26.

Anyone who still thinks that the Affordable Care Act has addressed Medicare’s insolvency problem hasn’t looked at the data closely. Based on the trustees’ report, despite a growing share of general revenue going to Medicare spending, the HI program will be insolvent by 2024 and registers $3 trillion in unfunded liabilities.

“Don’t tell me,” Michael Barone writes, that “public policy doesn’t account for much of the difference” between the job and population growth in Texas and the loss of jobs in California and anemic population growth in New York. In “the ten years between April 2001 and April 2011″.

Texas gained 732,800 private sector jobs, far ahead of the number two and three states, Arizona (90,200) and Nevada (90,000). The nation overall lost more than 2 million private sector jobs, with the biggest losses coming in California (623,700), Michigan (619,200) and Ohio (460,900).

While Frank served on the House Banking Committee in the 1990s [as what is now the Financial Services was then called], his partner, Herb Moses, worked at Fannie Mae as assistant director of product initiatives from 1991 to 1998. The two lived together at that time, breaking up in 1998, “a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae.”

“Frank actually called up the company (Fannie Mae) and asked them to hire his companion, who had just gotten an MBA from the Amos Tuck School of Business (at Dartmouth). . . . Of course the company was happy to provide a job for his companion and rolled out the red carpet in a series of interviews with a variety of executives, and it ultimately did hire the man.”

Wonder how the media would react if a journalist reported that a Republican member of the House Armed Services Committee got her husband a job at the Pentagon. (more…)

Yeah, I noticed it too. This guy contends conservatives are doing exactly what a good many liberals were doing for the better part of George W. Bush’s administration. Did Schultz ever take those liberals to task for criticizing the Commander-in-Chief in time of war? Did he wonder where their patriotism was?

And wasn’t it Mr. Schultz’s ideological allies back then who were faulting conservatives for allegedly raising those very questions about Mr. Bush’s critics?

(Yes, I too would like to see an unedited version of this, putting all his remarks in context.)